East Africa!

Vickers Wellesley by John Young

I have been working on the outlines for several scenarios for the Italian vs. British Commonwealth campaign in East Africa, 1940-41. These are, by the very nature of the campaign and the small numbers of aircraft deployed to the region, smallish in nature, some being one player per side. But it is an interesting campaign, featuring some odd aircraft such as the Junkers 86, Vickers Wellesley, and even the Hawker Hartbeest. It gives players the chance to use more biplanes as the Italians featured the CR.42 and CR.32, while the Commonwealth forces had the Gladiator and Hawker Fury. Later scenarios saw the introduction of the Hurricane and the FIAT G.50.

I have started reading a rather dry account concerning the air war (Air War in East Africa 1940-41: The RAF Versus the Italian Air Force by Cantwell and Sutherland) - dry in that it gives the dates and number of planes in the encounters, but does not use any first person accounts, nor details of how each action evolved. Granted, I am only a bit into the book, and it is well written, but the details on the actions are a bit slim. Luckily AI has been able to create scenario parameters for these missing details.

Here are the plane counts for the twenty-two scenarios I will be putting into Check Your 6! format:

Blue Falcon Hobbies Decals

While designed for the FJ-3 Fury, these will be used to enhance my FJ-4s

Yowsa! Yet another company making some high quality decals for our toys! I placed an order with Blue Falcon recently - only having heard of them from a post on the Check Your 6! discussion group - and I must say the decals look spectacular. 

This sheet will save me from having to paint the wingtip and rudder markings!

Blue Falcon produces over one hundred decal sheets, most based on specific squadrons, from World War Two up to the modern era. The print quality is crisp, and I believe that each decal is a separate decal (think Beacon from I-94 or Scale Specialties from same), which means not a lot of trimming around the decal has to be done I'll will update this post once I actually apply some of these decals).

Yeah, I got a thing for those Hellcats of VF-27.

Ordering was a breeze on the Blue Falcon website. Service was good as well - about a week from date of order to date of receipt. However, I also reached out to them about some custom sheets I would like to have completed, and to date, no response had been forthcoming.

A very useful sheet for Korea.

Regardless of my pending inquiries with Blue Falcon, I am rushing back to their site to buy more decals, and some of their paints! You should head there, too! Blue Falcon Hobbies

More Generosity

A couple weekends ago, while gaming with friends at DayCon, I was chatting with one who does 1/600 scale (heathen!) as I was complimenting him on his Battle of Britain planes that he had painted up and used for another event a few years before. For some reason I misremembered them as being 1/600 when he corrected me and stated that they were indeed the Chosen Scale of 1/285. He also mentioned that he needed to figure out what to do with them since he now games in that tinier scale. A few days later I mentioned to him that I would be interested in the planes if he decided to part with them.

Yesterday he brought the planes to me and told me to keep them. Bear in mind these are beautifully painted planes, twenty-eight in sum, and he did not want anything for them! (little does he know I have a cunning plan to repay his kindness) So now I have another theater for World War Two, and what he bequeathed to me can cover a half dozen scenarios from the various scenario books (Over the Channel, Days of Glory, and Battles Above 1)